‘Are you married to it?’ she had asked, and to his surprise he had realized that he was not. It had been his life for eight years, and would be for a few more yet, but it was not the limit of his ambition. Another five years perhaps, and then he would quit, spend a couple of years seeing all the wild places of the world while he was still young enough, find the few places people had not managed to fuck up yet. And he would not just be in the way: with the medical experience he had picked up in the Army he could make himself useful.
‘I think you’re the first man I’ve met who knows what he wants to do,’ Molly had said. She had also had rather a lot to drink. It had not affected her kissing, though.
Chris smiled at the memory. It promised to be a good evening. He strode up Chilton Street, remembering his mother had asked him to buy bread.
Damien Robson – ‘the Dame’ to all his comrades in the SAS – inserted the last inch of Mars bar into his mouth and stared out of the Renault’s window. The drizzle was still coming down – a cold drizzle – he imagined standing out there in the street would be like standing under a half-hearted cold shower. Which was almost attractive when you had been cooped up in a car seat for four hours with nothing to do but watch and wait.
It would be better if he was alone, but the guy from 14 Intelligence was sitting next to him, also eating a Mars bar. The Dame had already forgotten the man’s second name – his first was Alan – but at least he had finally got the message and stopped trying to start conversations.
Through the drizzle the lights of the Turf Lodge estate were dimly visible above the roofs of the terraced houses on the other side of Kenneally Street. Out of sight, round the corner at the end of the street, two more 14 Intelligence men were sitting in a battered Fiat. Another three were staked out inside number 36, where the terrorist arms cache awaited collection.
And tonight was the night, according to someone or other’s tout. The Dame doubted it, but he was only playing the odds. For every successful stake-out he had been on in Northern Ireland, he had been on half a dozen wastes of time. And this was beginning to look like one of those.
A pair of young girls walked past on the pavement, laughing under their shared umbrella, apparently oblivious to the watchers in the car, though you could never be sure. In a few minutes they might be telling their Provo brothers that two suckers were asking for it in a Renault on Kenneally Street.
Or they might be watching Coronation Street, like his sisters back in Sunderland. Innocent people living innocent lives, no threat to anyone.
The Dame had to admit it though – he liked Belfast. He did not like working there, and he felt sorry for all the people who had to live with it the way things were, but just as a town, as a bunch of people, it reminded him of Sunderland. The same brick streets and derelict docks, the same smell of the sea on the breeze. Like Sunderland it sometimes felt a bit sorry for itself, but the people were not beaten, not really. They held their strength inside, only brought it out when they needed to. Which was the way it should be.
His companion nudged him, and pointed over his shoulder. In the rear-view mirror he could see a youngish man in a leather jacket making his way up the other side of the street. He did not recognize him.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Our man’s darker, right?’ Alan asked.
‘Yes. And older than that,’ The Dame was only there, rather than sitting around the TV in Sunderland with his mother and sisters, because the year before he had been one of the few to clock a sight of – and live to remember – the Provo that the tout had claimed would be coming for the cache. His name was Eamonn O’Hanlon, and he was wanted for three murders and more kneecappings than anyone could count.
The Dame had almost been the fourth victim, and he was not about to forget O’Hanlon’s face.
It was almost half-past eight – half-time at Filbert Street. Jesus, Sunderland could do with three points …
The sound of a motor accelerating drew his eyes to the rear-view mirror. A Toyota van was accelerating up the street, rather fast … If this was the men coming to pick up the Armalites surely they would be trying to look less conspicuous …
An explosion spun the Dame’s head round. The air seemed to be full of flying objects, and number 36 was hidden by a billowing cloud of smoke. As he watched, a flowerpot, still containing its spider plant, landed right way up in the road ahead, and stood there shaking, as if traumatized by its flight.
The Toyota!
He turned his eyes right just at the moment it scraped past and round the front wing of the Renault, squealing to a halt almost dead in front of them, not five yards away, the back doors swinging open. The Dame threw himself down as two hooded figures were revealed, each holding a sub-machine-gun. The windscreen blew away and Alan sank back into his seat with a deep sigh.
The Dame extracted the Browning from its cross-draw holster and waited for the sound of the Toyota moving away. It did not come. Instead there were footsteps.
He had less than a second to make a decision, but it was not difficult. To do nothing was to die.
Using one foot on the bottom of the nearside door as leverage, he pushed himself up and across the dead Alan, the Browning aiming out through the windscreen. Like a duck coming into the sight of a fairground rifle, aim and target came miraculously together. The Dame pressed the trigger twice in quick succession, and whirled the Browning round in search of the other target just as something seemed to hiss across the shoulder of his windcheater. The sounds of the terrorist’s shots were still echoing when the Dame sent two bullets through the upper centre of his body.
A third man appeared around the side of the van, and disappeared just as quickly. The Dame could see nothing through the open back doors of the van, but he fired anyway, and thought he heard a cry of pain. The van roared away into the drifting smoke and disappeared.
Sirens seemed to be opening up from all directions. An ambush, he thought. An ambush within an ambush. The cache had been bait, planted over a bomb, which someone had detonated at exactly the right moment to disorientate those in the watching cars.
He wondered whether the occupants of the other car had been any quicker than Alan.
He checked the latter’s heart just to make sure, then cautiously climbed out of the car. The two men he had shot were lying a few feet apart. Both were young – young as he was. The first had died instantly, the second had taken time to spill a trickle of blood onto the wet road.
Neither of them was Eamonn O’Hanlon.
‘You look sharp,’ Eddie’s dad remarked from the living-room doorway.
‘Yeah,’ Eddie said, examining his tie-knot in the hallway mirror. ‘What are you doing this evening?’
‘Oh nothing. You know. There’s a good film on the TV – one of the Star Treks. Five, I think. Not that it makes much difference.’
Eddie smiled at him. Behind his father he could see the papers, tobacco and dope tin all laid out on the arm of the sofa. ‘Don’t get busted while I’m out,’ he said.
‘Some chance,’ his father said. ‘They’d have to mend the lifts first.’
That was probably true, Eddie thought, as he walked down the seven floors to the ground. His dad’s car, a second-hand Nissan Cherry, still had all its wheels. The local kids probably knew whose it was.
He pulled out into Glyn Road and headed west towards Mare Street. He had told his father the party started at eight, but one in the morning was more like it. First off he would have a decent meal in a wine bar he knew under the railway arches.
It was the third time he had been there over the furlough week and this time the waitress recognized him. She was quite small, with dark hair tied back in a bun, and a face that managed to be both decidedly European and vaguely oriental. And she had a lovely walk, Eddie thought, watching her cross the room.
He wondered what her name was.
He studied the menus, and decided on Chicken Chasseur with a Portuguese red. He could really get into wine, he thought
. If he ever had any money, building up a good cellar would be really interesting.
The waitress took his order.
‘Can I ask your name?’ Eddie asked.
‘Lisa,’ she said. ‘As in Mona.’
He liked that. When she brought the meal he asked her when she got off. Midnight, she said. And yes she did fancy a party. But he would have to put up with her dressed the way she was.
Eddie took his time with the bottle of wine, watching the other customers of the wine bar – mostly yuppie wankers as far as he could see – and enjoying Lisa’s occasional passage across the room. He would put up with her dressed the way she was, he thought, but he would rather have her naked.
Who knows, he thought. He visited the men’s toilet and found a condom machine that actually worked, which had to be a good omen.
She was not just sexy, he discovered on the way to the party. She was a student at Hackney College, planning on going round the world for a year when she was finished, and on an eventual career in some area of conservation.
Despite his fears the party was already in full swing when they arrived, and after sinking two glasses of wine in quick succession Lisa announced her desire to dance. They danced. First like dervishes, then like robots, finally in each other’s arms.
She smelt good. Too good. He could feel an erection coming between them. So could she, and pulled him closer. They kissed for a while.
‘Do you have a home we could go to?’ she asked.
‘’Fraid not. Do you?’
She giggled. ‘No. Can we go for a drive?’
‘Sure.’
‘I have to go somewhere first.’
He waited in the hall, looking around him. There was no sign of Lloyd, but maybe it was too early for him. The party seemed about seventy per cent black and thirty per cent white. But no Pakis, Eddie thought. They just did not mix, the Asians. Funny that – everyone had this bugbear about the blacks, the West Indians, but most of them were quite happy to be British. They were pissed off about being poor, not about being British. The Asians, on the other hand, just wanted to keep to themselves. Which pissed everyone else off.
‘I’m ready,’ Lisa said behind him.
It was cold outside now, and it took the car heater a while to warm up. Eddie drove east, her hand on his thigh.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘Somewhere quiet?’ he said. A tiny voice in his head told him she should not be putting herself at the mercy of a stranger like this. He would tell her so. Afterwards.
He found the industrial lane he knew, and drove to the end where a circular turning space fronted a corner of the Marshes. There was no one else there. Eddie had never been very enamoured of back-seat fucking, but Lisa made it a very pleasant experience. By this time the car heater had done its job, they had managed to strip each other of everything but socks, and Tina Turner’s ‘Steamy Windows’ was playing in Eddie’s head.
‘I liked that,’ she said, as they helped pull each other’s trousers on.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. Seeing her again would be nice, he thought. He had four more days to survive in Keir Hardie Tower. ‘Where do you live?’ he asked.
‘Stoke Newington.’
‘I’ll take you home.’
‘Oh.’
‘I didn’t mean it as an insult. I’d like to see you again. Soon.’
‘Yeah, OK.’
They climbed back into the front seats.
‘I don’t do this all the time, you know,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘What do you think? Fuck perfect strangers.’
‘OK.’
‘But I noticed you when you came in on Christmas Eve, and …’
‘I’m glad.’
‘What do you do, anyway?’
Eddie hesitated. He often lied at this point, because the true answer usually led the questioner to draw all the wrong conclusions about him. But this time he decided on being straight. ‘I’m in the Army,’ he said.
She said nothing.
He looked at her in the half-light. ‘Surprised?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘The Army’s like most things,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s different, and everyone’s in it for a different reason.’
‘What’s yours?’ she asked.
‘I wanted to get away from Hackney,’ he said. When he knew her better he could try and explain it properly.
She smiled. ‘It’ll take some getting used to,’ she said. ‘Most of the people I know think the Army’s just a bunch of trained thugs.’
‘They’re wrong there,’ Eddie said. ‘We’re highly trained thugs.’ He started the engine, turned the car and slowly drove back down the lane to the road. ‘Whereabouts in Stoke Newington?’ he asked, wondering whether to tell her he was SAS. No, he decided.
She didn’t seem too worried about his occupation, leaning her head on his shoulder all the way back to Shacklewell Lane, where she shared a first-floor room with another girl. He took down her telephone number, and they kissed with a tenderness which almost surprised him.
He took the drive back to Hackney slowly, realizing he had to be over the limit. He was nearly home, stopped at the lights on Chatsworth Road, when a familiar figure burst out of the road to his left, and stood, holdall in hand, looked wildly around, not five metres away.
‘Lloyd!’ he shouted.
His friend almost jumped out of his skin. The swelling whine of a siren suggested an explanation for the nervousness.
‘Give us a lift, man?’ Lloyd asked.
Eddie sighed. ‘Get in,’ he said.
Lloyd climbed in with alacrity, but still almost managed to fall out again as Eddie accelerated away up the road.
‘What’s in the bag?’ he asked.
‘Er, party things.’
‘Try again.’ The police car had swung round behind them.
‘Just a few watches.’
‘Shit!’ Eddie gripped the wheel harder. ‘OK, they’re going out the window.’
‘No, man …’
‘Either the bag goes, or you and the bag. Choose.’
‘All right man, don’t get your white knickers in a twist.’
‘Open the window. Once we’re round the next corner.’ They took it on squealing tyres. ‘Here, look, there’s a skip.’
Lloyd leant out and propelled the bag with perfect accuracy. ‘Magic Johnson – eat your heart out,’ he said exultantly, falling back into his seat.
Eddie took another tight turn, then another, then dramatically slowed down as he reached Chatsworth Road again. Which was fortunate, because a police car was flagging them down.
‘Evening, officer,’ Eddie said.
The constable stared at him while another stared at Lloyd from the other side. ‘Can I show you some ID?’ Eddie asked, finger poised over his pocket.
‘How kind,’ the constable said sarcastically. ‘Mind if we look in the back?’
‘Not at all.’
The second constable had a look, while Eddie showed his 22 SAS identity card.
‘One used condom on the floor,’ the second constable reported.
‘Couldn’t you afford one each?’ the first one said with a grin. ‘Go on, get out of here.’
‘I must have one of those magic cards printed,’ Lloyd said as they drove off.
Eddie turned a corner and pulled over. ‘Why don’t you go robbing in Hampstead or somewhere like that?’ he demanded.
‘I’d get caught, brother, that’s why.’
‘You’ll get caught here.’
‘Yeah, I know. But a black boy gotta do what a black boy gotta do. We can’t all play Lone Ranger for Queen and Cunt. And besides, if every poor black boy went over Hampstead it’d be like the Notting Hill Carnival every night of the week.’
Eddie smiled. ‘Yeah, right. Have you ever considered planning anything?’
‘I had the brick with me, didn’t I?’
They both burst out laughing.
> Eddie was still grinning as he began the climb to Flat 26, but somewhat less cheery when he let himself in. The TV was still on, the smell of marijuana thick on the air. His dad looked at him with glazed eyes. ‘Message by the phone,’ he said.
Eddie went and looked. ‘Report Back Hereford Souness,’ it said.
So either the Glasgow Rangers manager was getting messages, his dad could not spell ‘soonest’, or it was a joke.
There was a stoned giggle from the living-room.
Chapter 3
Eddie’s alarm went off at 7.30. He had a quick shower, and sat in the kitchen with a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee. The whole flat still smelt of dope, but if he opened a window his dad would probably die of hypothermia. At ten to eight he switched on the local radio to get the weather forecast – clear but cold – and find out which BR and Underground lines were fucked that morning. The answer was none that he intended to use. At eight o’clock, with his father still snoring loudly in the bedroom, Eddie left a note saying ‘Gone To War’ on the kitchen table and started down the fourteen flights of stairs which led to the outside world.
It seemed deserted – as usual the people of Britain had decided that the period between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve was a national holiday. The trains were running though, and Eddie took the overland to Liverpool Street, changing there onto the Circle Line for Paddington. He arrived with more than half an hour to spare before the Hereford train, and was in the queue for a coffee in Casey Jones when a hand grabbed his shoulder.
He turned to find a familiar, cheery face. ‘Christ, I thought they might want me for something important,’ Eddie said. ‘But if they want you as well …’
‘Get me a coffee while I get my ticket,’ Chris said. ‘And watch my bag,’ he added, dropping it within an inch of Eddie’s foot.
‘Yes, Corporal.’
‘Bollocks,’ Chris said over his shoulder.
He came back five minutes later. Eddie handed him his coffee.
Soldier D: The Colombian Cocaine War Page 6